Tastes Great, More Chilling: Acquired Tastes (Clay McLeod Chapman)

                                                                                   

We're back with another look at one of the Camp Necon 44 Writer Guests of Honor: Clay McLeod Chapman, whose Acquired Tastes came out last year and got a well-deserved Stoker Award nomination for fiction collection.  

A note before we begin: The meaning of the title here is particularly apt: Something you'll notice in these stories (and that also comes up a little bit in Chapman's What Kind of Mother is a focus on the horror of eating and consumption. Usually, in horror fiction consumption is tied to annihilation and we're worried that the vampire will drink our blood, the zombie will eat our flesh, and if we manage to escape them then the Blob will suck us up.

It makes sense; that's probably the one fear that most of the animal kingdom have in common, from beetles to sea lions: Fear of something getting us and eating us.

But fear of eating, that's something else, in part because it's more realistic. After all, you could choose to eat that gross piece of trash or that weird shiny...thing that just fell from the sky--or take a bite out of someone you know (or don't). There's a lot bound up in here as well--fear of becoming monstrous and turning into the bad thing, as well as fear of becoming an abject geek with no social consciousness or rational mentality, glutting yourself on chicken heads or garbage or worse. Anyway, food for thought.

The Fireplace 

Synopsis: A man becomes obsessed with the notion of cooking his son in their new house's fireplace.

Thoughts: Appealingly sick in the premise, although I first came to this right after reading all three of Joe Lansdale's Drive-In novels, so baby-cooking (a sufficient but not necessary condition to baby-eating) didn't have quite as much shock value for me as it should have. 

On a re-read, this is more effective, especially the ending, which hits the right notes and is the perfect first instance of the food theme. This is a good example of Chapman's ability to straddle the humor/horror line, although I do have to wonder if he had to fight with the publishers to get this story up front. "The thought of tossing our baby in the fireplace first popped into my head a month or so ago," is a pretty good mission statement for what to expect in this book, but surely someone must have been worried it'd put off at least a few potential purchasers taking a peek inside at the bookstore. 

On the other hand, maybe they knew it would have the opposite effect on some of us sickos. . . 

Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Key 

Synopsis: A church comic book bonfire doesn't go according to plan.

Thoughts: The title of course refers to the four colors used in printing.

It is all broadly drawn; there's not much realism or psychological depth here, but then there often wasn't a lot in the horror comics Chapman's celebrating here (especially once you venture beyond the high production values of EC Comics to the cheaper and dodgier Pre-Code imitators). Instead, we just have a set-up and a punch-line. But--what a punch line! 

This is a fun story with the most socially irresponsible scene of mass violence perpetrated by and upon young men since James Herbert's The Fog (not that anything will ever top that particular scene. If you know, you know). And I would love to see it animated some day. 

Who Brings a Baby? 

Synopsis: A filmgoer searches for the crying baby that's ruining his experience, but finds something else.

Thoughts: Silver Scream is an all-time great horror anthology, and while there have been a few worthy movie-related anthos since then, it's just banger after banger.

If I were to assemble a modern-day Silver Scream that similarly tapped into the current state of horror fiction, I'd absolutely include this story. I think it would make a good spiritual companion to Ramsey Campbell's "The Show Goes On" from Silver Scream, because both are smaller, self-contained pieces within a single movie theater (as opposed to some of the larger epics in that book like "Splatter: A Cautionary Tale" or "Pilgrims to the Cathedral")--just one man, and one. . . well, that would be telling.

Satisfaction guaranteed.

The Spew of News 

Synopsis: A man's parents are changed by their constant exposure to cable news. Really changed.

Thoughts: The embryonic form of the idea that would become Chapman's novel Open Your Eyes. And it's a good idea. But here, it's not much more than the good idea.

One advantage non-narrative forms of art have over narrative forms of art is that they can throw out a striking image or metaphor without having to set it up and see it through. If you imagine a single painting or cartoon or song lyric about Fox News viewers turning into slavering zombies, it could be a decent little bit of political art. But, even at the length of a short story, it gets old quickly.

I know many readers found this story resonant because of their own experiences with family members turning into QAnon cultists or cable news rage-addicts. As someone who, happily, never experienced that, I need the story to provide me with more of the emotional link, but the climax seems much more interested in the cool, icky monsters created by the television than the emotional impact of how seeing one's parents turned into said monsters would hit. It just feels hollow.

For an example of this done well, I'd point you to Richard Stanley's The Colour Out of Space, which delivers both the emotional and the visceral goods. 

On the other hand, "all splatter, no heart" is what critics said about John Carpenter's The Thing when it came out, and they look silly now, so time will tell. . . 

Stowaway 

Synopsis: A teen girl dragged along on a family vacation meets the same strange man at every hotel along the way.

Thoughts: Maybe the sleeper hit of the book? This isn't what I'd point someone to as an example of what I usually love about Chapman's stories, but it is some of his best work that I've read. This is a mix of three elements that all work for me. 

First is the uncanny, high-concept hook. If you tell me that someone is improbably popping up over and over again, I want to read the story.  It isn't original (in five seconds I thought of at least one Twilight Zone episode, as well as "The Hitch-Hiker" from Creepshow 2, which work similar territory, and I think that's the tip of the iceberg), but you don't have to be original when you're a) working at the level of a primordial experience and b) you're executing it very well (Cf. Shakespeare, William). And no, Chapman isn't Shakespeare, but there are two other authors a bit closer to home that Chapman's tapped into the power of here, so let's talk about them. 

Point number two are the similarities to Dennis Etchison. Etchison could, and did, write whatever he wanted, but what keeps me coming back to him are his eerie, liminal (long before that was "a thing") American spaces--a darkened Hotel California of a corpus that reinvest the most boring spaces of modern American life with the mystery and terror of the myth of the frontier. Sara's dad's itinerary to find the Forgotten America through a string of crumbling, not-abandoned-but-should-be motels is exactly the sort of Etchisonian thing that trips my triggers. 

Point number three are the similarities to Joyce Carol Oates. The queasy, sexually-charged relationship between teen Sara and the older stranger is something any number of people could write, but to have the courage and psychological acuity to see how something so profoundly unhealthy could still be appealing (even partially) to Sara--well, that immediately makes me think of  Oates' work. The whole story, in fact, exists in that kind of post-Shirley Jackson space that Oates has made one of her many fiefdoms. 

What are you waiting for? Get off your ass and read this story. 

Baby Carrots

Synopsis: The tense atmosphere in a household in the throes of marital dissolution explodes in a frenzy of baby-carrot madness. 

Thoughts: I love baby carrots; they're a great guilt-free snack whenever you want them (unless you count the guilt of an unopened bag of baby carrots balefully regarding you as you reach for another beer).

Speaking of alcohol, here's an analogy: One of my favorite parts of going out to eat is trying new cocktails, and I've found that when you see a drink with two or three different ingredients that don't seem like they should work together at all, it's worth a try. That's because, my theory goes, thinking of these kinds of combinations requires both an intelligent, creative mind and a skill at mixing--and because it seems like such an obvious bad idea that if it made it to the menu, it's probably actually not bad at all. 

That's what this story is--there are three different elements that would tend to clash (any two of them could work fine, but all three seem ambitious): There's a goofy, almost bizarro story about becoming obsessed with baby carrots that feels like a Jeff Strand story or something (in a good way). Then, there's a repulsive, grueling body horror tale (which, fair enough, isn't totally at odds with the bizarro story). Finally, there's an intelligently observed and emotionally on-point story of a disintegrating marriage. This is every bit as humanly true as any given Oscar-nominated domestic drama, and yet it meshes perfectly into this insano story that feels like "They're Creeping Up On You" but with baby carrots instead of cockroaches.  The more I think about this story, the more in awe I am of it (and Chapman).   

Fairy Ring 

Synopsis: A man deals with his mother's deterioration as the victim of a fungal epidemic. 

Thoughts: Mushroom horror seems to be a hot new thing lately, and no wonder: It's fertile ground for body horror (as Chapman demonstrates here), and fungi tie into all sorts of things: Poisons, witchcraft and potions, the nature of perception, new concepts of intelligence, and more. There's also a sort of macabre, fantastic aesthetic 

This is a good example of a topical horror story; here, the topic being the Covid-19 pandemic. It works because, even though the metaphor is obvious, it's still a metaphor, which allows the story to explore its own thing rather than just being tied to a particular time and place. As a result, the topical stuff is subtext, not just text (although as a couple of the other tales here demonstrate, Chapman can do that well too). 

Room with a Boo 

Synopsis: Plenty of people found themselves forced together during the coronavirus pandemic. Even ghosts.

Thoughts: Another Covid-era story, but the themes just don't click this time around. The problem is length. Given how condensed the story is, the escalation from "haunted apartment" to "quasi-romantic" lacks emotional weight. What could have been a strong, sad fantasy just seems like a rushed story; the set up and the writing deserve better. 

The line "We were all ghosts haunting our own homes now" is great, though. 

Pump and Dump

Synopsis: A new father develops an unhealthy relationship with a second-hand breast pump. 

Thoughts: "I have nipples, Greg. Could you milk me?" 

This is another very Bentley Little-esque story, in that it transforms "normal" middle-class American life into a contingent reality at risk of rupture from any of its constituent situations or objects. In this case--a breast pump. 

The metaphor for parenthood isn't entirely original--we've seen this sort of thing before in stories like Kit Reed's "Baby" and Melanie Tem's "The Co-op." However, like a breast pump, those tales are crafted more with the mother in mind; Chapman proves that applying both to fatherhood yields good results. 

Disgusting, funny, horrific, off the wall. 

Keep It Civil

Synopsis: Confederate war memorials are coming down across the country, but in Mathew, Virginia, a group of concerned citizens is going to protect theirs. No matter what. 

Thoughts: This was a very pleasant surprise.

 Don't get mistaken: My 4th of July tradition is watching the Battle of Little Roundtop scenes from Gettysburg while drinking and hollering the "Battle Hymn of the Republic." But, I do hate overly topical and sanctimonious stories, and so coming on the heels of "The Spew of News," I was bracing for a smug, "well, we all agree those people are just awful" kind of story. And, even if we all do (or should) agree with that, there's a type of political art that, by preaching only to the choir, divests itself of the right to be called properly political: It's not going out into the arena of ideas and fighting and trying to win and work in the world by changing people's minds;  it's just performing for the converted. (See, for example, pretty much everything published on McSweeney's Internet Tendency since mid-2016). 

This is not that; it's much more intelligent and sophisticated, and there's a deeper aura of sadness that transcends any kind of sub-Creepshow 2 theatrics. Recommended.

Battlefield Séances

Synopsis: In the aftermath of the Civil War, the spiritually talented young Fox sisters sell their services to reconnect dead soldiers with their loved ones.  

Thoughts: Speaking of exemplary Civil War-themed stories. . . 

This is a story that's crying out for novel-length expansion, I think. There are so many ways to explore the intersection of the American Civil War and the 19th century spiritualism movement in America, and Chapman's story packs them in here like an artilleryman loading a cannon. The results are similarly explosive. 

I like this story a lot; the reason I think it should be longer is because Chapman identifies a bunch of different ways this could go, from straight-up horror to a ghostly love story in the vein of The Decemberists' "Yankee Bayonet," and the result is great, but I think everything would benefit from more room to breathe.

Pick of the Litter

Synopsis: A bit of people-watching at the local playground.

Thoughts: This is a fun one. If you've spent much time in the horror or crime genres, you've probably encountered a story like this; the first one that springs to my mind is Dennis Etchison's "Princess." Anyway--a good sick joke, well told, even if you can guess the punchline. 

Sisterhood of the Salamander 

Synopsis: The sisters of the Basilica de Nuestra Senora de la Arpia are devoted to God and their endangered salamanders, but the boundary between the two is weakening. . . 

Thoughts: Kind of a letdown, I'm afraid. The wildest and most creative thing here is the concept of Mexican nuns caring for endangered lizards, but it turns out that part is true. So we can't quite credit Clay with the idea, although we can applaud the correctness of his writer's instinct to hear about this convent and think, "I gotta write a story about this."

What's the problem? It's oddly straightforward. Nuns care for salamanders, nuns get weirdly obsessed with salamanders, weirdness intensifies. If this were, say, a Ken Russell movie, the linearity wouldn't matter: We could wallow in the weirdness with musical juxtapositions and kooky choreography and feel it viscerally. But we don't have that here.

There's also the problem, of course, that "humans obsess over salamanders until they become them" is a very niche idea which has somehow already been done before, and better. Not that Julio Cortazar has a monopoly on the idea, but it's a very small pond to splash in that already has a very big fish in it. 

Knockoffs

Synopsis: A father's disgust with the proliferation of trashy "Tubby Wubby" toys turns into a one-man crusade. 

Thoughts: Not the best story in this book (mostly because "Stay on the Line" flounced in to snatch that crown) but the one that immediately comes to mind when I think of this collection (or Chapman generally). I'm guessing that Chapman also saw the ubiquity of those horrid "Poppy Playtime" things at the mall (if you went just by what's on offer at dodgy mall kiosks, you'd think that Poppy Playtime had captured the hearts of America. 

The contrarian in me does want to ask. . . what differentiates your hatred of these sorts of things that you think are valueless but the kids love from the hatred of comic books you parody elsewhere in this books? And I think there is a good answer (some of those comic books were actually good), but I'm just saying. . . 

Anyway, maybe the most pleasantly deranged of all the stories in the book, with a plot wrinkle at the halfway point that is at least as nuts as anything Bentley Little's ever pulled. 

Debridement 

Synopsis: A woman suffering a flesh-eating bacteria infection begins to go mad (hey, can you blame her)?

Thoughts: EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.

Debridement and degloving are probably tied for "de-word that brings the most visceral displeasure to me" (degustation is second, because even though it's not disgusting, it sounds disgusting). Anyway, this isn't the grossest story I've ever read, but it does the job all the same. 

This also has one of the highest compliments I can give, which is that it feels like an Elizabeth Massie story. Specifically, it's rooted in the daily existence of a woman who has been cut off from society by some mental or physical (or both; why not both?) trauma, and whose relation to the rest of the world, and in particular to sexuality, has gone very skewed. And, like Massie's stories, the extreme content never seems unjustified by the circumstances or overshadows the emotional core of the work. 

Psychic Santa 

Synopsis: A department store Santa Claus can see the dead. 

Thoughts: I heard an interview with Chapman where he said he fought hard to get this story included in the collection. I'm glad he did; it's not one of my favorites here, but I like it when collections have a range of tones and styles (it's part of the appeal of, say, Skeleton Crew, even if Night Shift is a consistently better collection of horror stories).  It is a little schmaltzy, but Christmas stories are allowed to be schmaltzier than usual, and there's a real darkness here that makes this story stand out versus ones that deal with similar material. 

Posterboard 

Synopsis: A political rally gets violent. 

Thoughts: Another good political horror story; this one squares the circle of "being universally applicable no matter your politics" and "having something to say about politics and not being namby-pamby or overly generic."  If you've been at a protest that gets ugly, or something similar, you know the feeling. It's this deep well of atavistic hate that comes bubbling up from the earth. You start shaking, you don't think straight, you get mad. It's scary. And, sure, sometimes it's important to get angry when it comes to politics. Just. . . don't go to pieces. 

Our Summer in the Pit 

Synopsis: Five kids have an unforgettable summer at the neighborhood Pit.

Thoughts: I like this one, a lot. Chapman starts off with a 'kids on bikes' scenario (and how much does it suck that what we used to call a coming-of-age story has now been algorithmically dissected and cubed and diced into a set of Netflix elements?), and then makes it both more true to the psychology and experience of kids than a certain bloated nostalgia fest, and more horrifically edgy as well.

There's a sickness and a wrongness to what happens that I enjoyed. Chapman's stories are great for that--they go too far, but in a (usually) non-gratuitous way. 

Sweetmeat

Synopsis: A dad becomes obsessed with a strange treat on Halloween night.

Thoughts: I know I raved about the 'eating horror' element of the stories here at the beginning, but parts of this seemed too similar to "Knockoffs" for me (and, looking ahead, it seems that Chapman has a story called "Treats" in Ellen Datlow's forthcoming All Hallow's Eve, so we'll see if he goes to the well again).

Still, it's good, and Chapman gets a lot of mileage out of gum damage and tooth loss, which are (mercifully) underutilized in horror. And I actually didn't expect the twist. 

Nail on the Head

Synopsis: When you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Especially when that hammer is a high quality Breck & Myer hammer.

Thoughts: I don't know. It's okay. There's a long tradition of "filler stories that are about someone going after their immediate family with stuff you'd find in a toolbox" (the Pan Book of Horror Stories series alone has three or four of them), and somebody has to continue it, I guess. That said, within the very strict bounds of this benighted micro-genre, Chapman's story stands out for sheer quality of writing.

I am, by the way, a soft touch for "stupid throwaway jokes about actors who are a big deal but not like a really big deal," so then Breckin Meyer gag goes a long way for me.

The Nocturnal Gardener

Synopsis: An aging woman becomes obsessed with her garden. 

Thoughts: It's okay.  Chapman creates an evocative atmosphere, but the horrific element feels shoehorned in; it reminds me a little of Michael Blumlein's "Keeping House," which has a similar kind of buildup born of paranoid, obsessive domesticity but feels a bit flat. Another example of a story that's very well-written, but doesn't really have the emotional impact it should. 

Hermit

Synopsis: A young boy's odd behavior has its roots in dad's childhood pet. 

Thoughts: It's no What Kind of Mother, but this is still a worthy addition to Clay Chapman's corpus of creepy crab stories (his creepy crab canon, if you will). It's almost a reverse of that story--in What Kind of Mother, the crab shenanigans are the price to pay to keep a son alive (in some form), whereas here, the son is secondary to the needs of the crab. Good, wince-inducing fun. 

All Ears

Synopsis: A father's return from the Vietnam War kicks off a summer of fear in a New York apartment building. 

Thoughts: A grim and gross one, despite the cheeky title. This one felt like a pleasant throwback to the New Horror era; in particular, the grimy urban squalor and political subtexts reminded me of Dead End: City Limits, which continues to be one of my favorite books I've covered on this blog so far. 

There is a point in the first third where we've figured out what's happening (even though our main character hasn't), which is often the beginning of the end for a promising story. It's usually not very much fun watching a character reconstruct what we already know or suspect. However, Chapman's evocative writing gets us through, and then there's a twist that's one of the more horrific things in this book (and, as you may have gathered, this isn't a book that's short on horrific shit). Recommended, and the first of a three story hot streak to end the collection. 

Stay on the Line

Synopsis: A phonebooth becomes the emotional center for a small community shattered by a storm.

Thoughts: The standout of this collection; this isn't messing around. Every once in a while I have a moment where I'm reading a book or a story and I get that lightning blast jolt and all of a sudden I'm thrown back a couple decades and it's the summer and I'm reading Skeleton Crew or The Best of Cemetery Dance or The Dark Half for the first time and it's all scary and fresh and exciting. I don't get that feeling a lot, so when I do, baby, I hold on tight.

This is one of those stories; it's the story that I always wanted "The Reach" to be (my hot take about "The Reach" is that it's a fine story and all, but it gets over represented in 'serious' anthologies because the editors wanted to seem 'with it' and include Stephen King but they weren't about to choose anything actually, y'know, scary). This story captures a lot of what made everyone fall in love with King in the first place--the finding of horror in everyday objects and situations, and the well-drawn, real-to-life characters. Compelling, sad, terrifying. A must read.

Nathan Ballingrud's Haunting Horror Recs

Synopsis: A group of horror fans go on a pilgrimage to meet Nathan Ballingrud--and get his haunting horror recommendations!

Thoughts: Some in-jokes, if done well enough, can be so effective that it doesn't matter if you're in on them or not. In fact, they can work either way. Take the high point of Key & Peele--the Gremlins 2 skit. If you haven't seen Gremlins 2, it's hilarious. If you have, it's hilarious for similar but different reasons.

That's what's at work here. If you don't know that Ballingrud is a real person, it's hysterical. If you're closely familiar with his work, it's hysterical. If, like me, you're aware of him and have enjoyed the stories of his you've read and need to get around to reading more of his work, you guessed it, hysterical.